An Analysis of Fraud: Causes, Prevention, and Notable Cases
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University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Honors Theses and Capstones Student Scholarship Fall 2012 An Analysis of Fraud: Causes, Prevention, and Notable Cases Kristin A. Kennedy University of New Hampshire - Main Campus Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/honors Part of the Accounting Commons Recommended Citation Kennedy, Kristin A., "An Analysis of Fraud: Causes, Prevention, and Notable Cases" (2012). Honors Theses and Capstones. 100. https://scholars.unh.edu/honors/100 This Senior Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses and Capstones by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An Analysis of Fraud: Causes, Prevention, and Notable Cases University of New Hampshire Honors Thesis in Accounting Kristin Kennedy ADMN 799 Professor Le (Emily) Xu Fall 2012 Table of Contents I. Background……………………………………………………………........1 a. What is accounting and what role does financial reporting serve?..........1 b. History of accounting standards………………………………………..2 c. Role of auditing………………………………………………………...5 II. Fraud……………………………………………………………………….6 a. Two types of fraud……………………………………………………..6 i. Misappropriation of Assets…………………………………….7 ii. Misrepresentation of Financial Statements…………………….7 b. Fraud Triangle………………………………………………………….8 c. What to look for in a fraudster…………………………………………9 III. Past Cases of Fraud……………………………………………………….10 a. WorldCom…………………………………………………………….11 b. Tyco International Ltd………………………………………………..15 c. Adelphia Communications Corporation…………………………....…17 IV. Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002………………………………………...…....20 a. Analysis of SOX: Costs vs. Benefits…………………………………34 i. Interview of a Current CPA…………………………………..35 V. Recent Case of Fraud…………….……………………………………….38 a. Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme………………………………………...38 VI. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010...41 VII. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..44 I. Background a. What is accounting and what role does financial reporting serve? Accounting is often referred to as the language of business because it facilitates the communication of the financial position of a company in an easily comparable way that various users can understand. In simple terms, accounting involves setting up, maintaining, and reviewing the accounting records of a company in order to properly understand its financial position. There are many users, both internal and external, of the accounting records of an entity. Internal users typically refer to management, while external users refers to investors and lenders. Due to these various users, it is very important that the financial reporting provides a fair representation of the financial position of the company and that the company is disclosing all important financial information they are required to. Without strict oversight and regulations, stakeholders of public companies are susceptible to great risk. As stated in Objective 2 of FASB Concept Statement No. 8: Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting, “The objective of general purpose financial reporting is to provide financial information about the reporting entity that is useful to existing and potential investors, lenders, and other creditors in making decisions about providing resources to the entity. Those decisions involve buying, selling, or holding equity and debt instruments and providing or settling loans and other forms of credit.” Therefore, general financial reporting is primarily intended to assist external users in investing and lending decisions. Objective 5 of Concept Statement No. 8 goes on to describe why external users are the intended beneficiary of general purpose financial reporting. “Many existing and potential investors, lenders, and other creditors cannot require reporting entities to provide information directly to them and must rely on general purpose financial reports for much of the financial information they need. Consequently, they are the primary users to whom general purpose 1 financial reports are directed.” External users would not have any access to critical financial information if public companies were not required to produce financial statements. The availability of this information allows for more transparent and fair securities markets. Objective 9 explains that the management of the entity is not a primary user because they can obtain the necessary information internally. Objective 10 states that financial reporting of an entity may be useful to regulators or other non-investing members of the public, but these are also not intended to be primary users. Simply stated, financial reporting is meant to protect the investing public and provide confidence in the securities markets. Investors and lenders have the right to fully disclosed, reliable financial information when making investing decisions about an entity. Any benefits received from financial reporting by anyone other than these investors and lenders is above and beyond the primary goal. b. History of accounting standards In American history, the 1920s is often referred to as the “Roaring Twenties”. Social norms were challenged and the country experienced an intense economic boom. Prohibition led to the opening of speakeasies and other underground alcohol markets; the role of women changed vastly; tastes in fashion and music changed immensely; urbanization was at an all time high; and the widespread use of automobiles, telephones, and electricity led to increasing technological growth. The six years leading up to the stock market crash in 1929 represented unprecedented prosperity for most sectors of the American economy (pbs.org). However, during this time of widespread economic gain, the use of fair value accounting and the lack of regulation in the securities markets left investors at great risk. The reported values of many stock prices had no information to justify the value. Banks were lending 2 recklessly with no guarantees to customers and the gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans was increasing steadily (pbs.org). Although many thought the prosperity of this time could go on indefinitely, the future proved to be much less glorious than anticipated. On October 29, 1929, which came to be known as Black Tuesday, the economic growth came to an abrupt halt as the country saw the stock market completely crash. Vast amounts of Americans had invested their life savings in the stock market without knowing the possible consequences of doing so. This left much of the country in financial devastation and led to a worldwide financial disaster known as the Great Depression, which lasted until 1933. Following the Great Depression, there was a dire need for regulation and full disclosure of accounting records within the securities markets. “Some feel that insufficient and misleading financial statement information led to inflated stock prices and that this contributed to the stock market crash and the subsequent depression” (Spiceland 9). When investors did not have accurate financial information at their disposal, they were prone to making poor investing decisions. The Securities & Exchange Acts of 1933 and 1934 were the first pieces of legislature to require public companies to be audited quarterly and annually. These acts were designed to restore investor confidence in the markets. The 1934 act also created the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), which “Congress gave the authority to set accounting and reporting standards for companies whose securities are publicly traded.” (Spiceland 9). A publicly traded company is any company that issues stock, bonds, or other securities to the general public through a stock exchange or other market. Considering the vast number of stakeholder’s of a public company compared to a private company, the guidelines for reporting and auditing a public company are much stricter. 3 The SEC chose to delegate the standard setting process to the private sector; however, the SEC maintains the standard setting power if it does not agree with a specific standard that has been set. The first private body to assume the standard setting task was the Committee on Accounting Principles (CAP). The CAP maintained this position from 1938 until 1959, during which time 51 Accounting Research Bulletins (ARBs) were issued (Spiceland 10). These ARBs dealt with specific accounting issues that arose rather than general accounting framework, which led to significant criticism of the accounting profession. From 1959 through 1973, the Accounting Principles Board (APB) took over the role of public accounting standard setting. In this time, the APB issued 31 Accounting Principles Board Opinions (APBOs), various Interpretations, and four Statements (Spiceland 10). The APB was criticized for a perceived lack of independence because it was composed almost entirely of certified public accountants, meaning the members may have been influenced by their clients to make certain decisions. It is this criticism of the APB that led to the creation of the current standard setting board in 1973, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The FASB has a much different structure than the APB, as it has seven full-time members elected to five year terms, where the APB had only part-time members (fasb.org). Also, while all members of the APB belonged to the AICPA, members